Harvest Monday - 22 April 2013

This year is going so fast and we are already feeling the cold of winter creeping up on us. The temperature on Phillip Island has been ranging from 10-19 degrees(50 - 60 Fahrenheit), I know people suffer in much colder climates but to me its still cold. Even so my garden is looking pretty happy.

 

My harvests have been very green, above is a new to me variety of Silver beet. The midribs on this variety are huge - I can see why the advertise it as being good for silver beet stalk gratin.

    

I'm still getting a few capsicums here and there, I have a huge Marconi plant that I'm going to leave in the ground to see how it goes.

 

I pulled a few black radishes to make some space, I have been stir frying these with garlic, ginger, soy and chilli - its a great way to bulk up veggie dinners.

 

Lots of green - spinach, lettuce, rocket and silver beet. And I'm loving having these back in rotation.

 

My chickens are still laying away, I hope they don't go in to moult this season, so soon after they started laying.

 

My brassica bed it growing strongly, although a industrious cabbage white somehow found its way in laid a bunch of eggs and escaped.

 

And in future harvest's - Peas. I have never had much luck with Pea's but I gave it another go this year. This is a dwarf American Gem, I also have two climbing varieties - Telephone and Purple podded Dutch. They seem to be growing very slowly.

What's growing in your garden at the moment?

Saturday Spotlight - Red Kuri or potimaron squash

I managed to grow quite a few squash/pumpkin this year in a 1.5m x 2m bed that also housed my beans and corn. I had 3 squash plants placed throughout the bed. I grew Australian Butter and Red Kuri, Red Kuri is a smaller squash ranging from half a kilo up to two kilos, perfect for a small household like mine.

My two plants grew and grew and set fruit like mad, I forgot to count but there was over 17 of these little guys. So far I have only roasted them but gosh they were good. No stringy fibres, the flesh is sweet and savoury- my friend who came over for a roast dinner said it tasted like amazing Pumpkin soup. 

Here are the vines in full swing - you can see and Australian butter in the front but there is a Red Kuri tucked away in there.

And cut open - beautiful bright orange flesh, yum yum. I highly recommend giving this variety a go. It set fruit 2 months after it was sown and tasted great even when I picked the too early. It even resisted the powdery mildew that took everything else out in late January.

Harvest Monday - 8 April 2013

Autumn has well and truly hit, after the long hot summer we had I'm looking forward to cooler temperatures and a bit more rain. I have had a hectic few weeks, 5 short weeks actually which doesn't sound hectic but due to the nature of my job 5 short weeks make for a very stressful work week. I was also lucky enough to catch the flu and was in bed for most of the Easter long weekend - I did get a lot of reading done which was pretty great. Any-who, on to the harvests.

With the cooler weather I finally have salad greens again! My garden is so open and has sun for over 10hrs in summer so I haven't been able to grow anything in the salad green category since November.

A lovely basket of rocket and Salad bowl lettuce that was taken to a friends house for dinner and shared with yummy Snapper pie.

Thinning's from my carrots and a lone beetroot that popped up.

My girls are happy with the daily bunches of silver beet they get, devouring them faster than I thought possible.

and in exchange for the leafy greens they provide me with beautiful eggs with the brightest orange yolks I have ever seen.

I cut out a few of my basil plants to make way for some more autumn plantings. This lot will go into some pesto for freezing.

And lastly I just wanted to show you a picture of my brassicas under my new Veggienet, above is 1 week ago.

And today - the growth and health of the plants is amazing. My cabbages outside the net are suffering from cabbage whitefly and in turn there larvae which I thought were aphids to begin with, not the cabbages under the net though they are healthy and pest free. One week, I can't believe the growth!

Tahnks again to Daphne of Daphnes Dandelions for hosting the Harvest Monday blog hop.